Battles of Narvik
The Battles of Narvik were fought from 9 April to 8 June 1940, as a naval battle in Ofotfjord and as a land battle in the mountains surrounding the north Norwegian town of Narvik, as part of the Norwegian campaign of the Second World War.
The two naval battles in Ofotfjord on 10 April and 13 April were fought between the British Royal Navy together with the Polish Navy and the German Kriegsmarine, while the two-month land campaign was fought by Norwegian, French, British, and Polish troops against German mountain troops, shipwrecked Kriegsmarine sailors, and German paratroopers from the 7th Air Division. Although defeated at sea off Narvik, losing control of the town of Narvik and being pushed back towards the Swedish border, the Germans eventually prevailed because of the Allied evacuation from Norway in June 1940 following the Battle of France.
Narvik provided an ice-free harbour in the North Atlantic for iron ore transported by rail from Kiruna in Sweden. Both sides in the war had an interest in securing this iron supply for themselves and denying it to the enemy, thereby setting the stage for one of the biggest battles since the Invasion of Poland.
Prior to the German invasion, British forces had considered Narvik as a possible landing point for an expedition to help Finland in the Winter War. Such an expedition also had the potential of taking control of the Swedish mines and opening up the Baltic for the Allies.
German invasion
On 1 March 1940, Adolf Hitler ordered the invasion of Norway, codenamed Operation Weserübung as a preventive manoeuvre against a planned, and openly discussed, Franco-British occupation of Norway. This operation would involve most of the Kriegsmarine. Participating units were divided into five groups, which were to occupy six of the main Norwegian ports.Group I departed Bremerhaven on 6 April. It consisted of 10 German destroyers of the 1934A and 1936 classes Georg Thiele, Wolfgang Zenker, Bernd von Arnim, Erich Giese, Erich Koellner, Diether von Roeder, Hans Lüdemann, Hermann Künne, Wilhelm Heidkamp and Anton Schmitt, commanded by Kommodore Friedrich Bonte. Each of the warships carried around 200 soldiers from the 139th Mountain Regiment. The troop-carrying destroyers were escorted most of the way by the battleships and.
In the early morning of 9 April, the destroyers of Group I passed the Vestfjorden and arrived at the Ofotfjorden leading to Narvik, in fog and heavy snow. In Ofotfjord, they captured three Norwegian patrol boats. Before capture Kelt managed to send a message to the coastal defence ship HNoMS Norge, alerting the local Norwegian naval commander of the incoming vessels. The German ships Wolfgang Zenker, Erich Koellner and Hermann Künne landed their soldiers in Herjangsfjord in order to capture a Norwegian regimental supply base at Elvegårdsmoen. Hans Ludemann and Hermann Künne also landed their troops in order to engage the nearby Norwegian forts. Diether von Roeder remained in Ofotfjord in order to ensure German control of the sea. Erich Giese was delayed by engine trouble and did not join the main force for some time.
The main defence of Narvik were the old coastal defence ships Eidsvold and her sister ship Norge. Having been alerted by Kelt, both Norwegian ships prepared for combat: the guns were loaded and life preservers issued to the crew. Around 04:15, the Germans spotted Eidsvold, and Eidsvold immediately signalled the leading German destroyer with an aldis lamp. When the Germans failed to respond to the signal, a warning shot was fired across their bow.
The Germans had orders to occupy Norway peacefully if at all possible, so the German flagship Wilhelm Heidkamp stopped and signalled that it would send an officer to negotiate. A small launch ferried Korvettenkapitän Gerlach over to Eidsvold. Gerlach was taken to the bridge to speak to Captain Odd Isaachsen Willoch.
Gerlach tried to convince Willoch that the Germans had arrived as friends, but that the Norwegians had to hand over their warships to the German armed forces. Captain Willoch asked for time to consult his commander, Captain Per Askim, the commander of Norge. This request was refused by the Germans, but while Willoch had been talking to the German officer, the radio officer on board Eidsvold had communicated the events to Askim. Askim's response to the German demands and order to Willoch came immediately; Willoch and Eidsvold was to open fire. Willoch responded to Askim; "I am attacking." While this was going on, the German destroyer Wilhelm Heidkamp had positioned herself off the port side of Eidsvold and trained her torpedo launchers on the Norwegian ship.
Gerlach tried once again to convince Willoch to surrender, but Willoch refused. As Gerlach left Eidsvold, he fired a red flare, indicating that the Norwegians intended to fight. At this point, Captain Willoch shouted: "På plass ved kanonene. Nå skal vi slåss, gutter!". Eidsvold turned towards the closest destroyer and accelerated, closing the distance to Wilhelm Heidkamp to while the battery commander ordered the port battery to open fire.
The Germans, afraid that Eidsvold might ram the destroyer, fired four torpedoes from Wilhelm Heidkamp at the old ship. Two of the torpedoes hit before the port guns could fire. The Norwegian ammunition magazine was ignited and Eidsvold was blown in two. The forward part of the ship sank in seconds, the stern followed in minutes, propellers still turning. At around 04:37, she was gone. 175 Norwegian sailors died in the freezing water, including Captain Willoch, with just eight surviving.
Deeper inside the fjord, the explosions were heard aboard Norge, but nothing could be seen until two German destroyers suddenly appeared out of the darkness and Captain Per Askim of Norge gave orders to open fire at 04:45. Four rounds were fired from the guns as well as seven or eight rounds from the starboard guns, against the German destroyer Bernd von Arnim, at a range of about. Due to the difficult weather conditions, the guns' optical sights were ineffective: the first salvo fell short of the target and the next ones overshot it.
The German destroyers waited until they were alongside the pier before returning fire. Bernd von Armin opened fire with her guns as well as with machine guns, but the weather gave the Germans problems as well. The destroyer also fired three salvoes of two torpedoes each. The first two salvoes missed, but the last struck Norge midships and she sank in less than one minute. Ninety of the crew were rescued, but 101 perished in the battle which had lasted less than 20 minutes. The destruction of Norge signalled the end of Norwegian resistance in the port.
Much of the Norwegian garrison at Narvik awoke to the sound of gunfire and were unprepared to face the Germans. Many were surrounded and disarmed as they scrambled to occupy defensive positions. The commander-in-chief of the Narvik area, Colonel Konrad Sundlo, is often cited as the reason for the quick capitulation. Described by Kriegsmarine Admiral Erich Raeder as "an officer with reportedly pro-German feelings", he quickly withdrew from the area following the naval engagement and began negotiations with the Germans. After the initial loss of Narvik, Norwegian general Carl Gustav Fleischer sent out a communiqué, part of which read:
Sundlo was charged with treason for the surrender of Narvik after the war, but these charges were dismissed. Instead he was found guilty of negligence for failing to adequately prepare for Narvik's defence, and on charges of cooperating with the Germans during the occupation.
The morning of the German attack four Norwegian steamers were anchored in Narvik; the Cate B, the Eldrid, the Haalegg and the Saphir. In addition to the Norwegian vessels, four foreign, neutral ships were present; the Dutch steamer Bernisse, and the three Swedish steamships Boden, Oxelösund and Strassa. As well as neutral ships, the warring parties had vessels at Narvik, riding anchor in the same port. The British had five steamers in the harbour; the Blythmoor, the Mersington Court, the North Cornwall, the Riverton, and the Romanby. As the German flotilla seized Narvik, there were 11 German merchant steamers at the port town; the Aachen, the Altona, the Bockenheim, the Hein Hoyer, the Martha Henrich Fisser, the Neuenfels, the Odin, the Lippe, the Frielinghaus, the Planet, and the replenishment oiler/maintenance ship. Jan Wellem, a converted former whale factory ship, awaited the arrival of the German warships, which she was tasked to refuel. Working in the harbour were the Swedish tugs Diana and Styrbjörn. As the German destroyers entered the harbour, the captain of Bockenheim, who assumed that the intruding warships were British, beached and scuttled his vessel. In total, 25 ore ships had been riding at anchor in Narvik at the outset of the fighting, 10 of which were German.
The German destroyers were now short of fuel and had only one fuel tanker in support, the ex-whale factory ship Jan Wellem that had been despatched to Narvik, according to some sources from the secret German naval base Basis Nord at Zapadnaya Litsa in the Soviet Union, where she had been based since 4 February 1940. Another source indicates that she departed Murmansk in the evening of the 6 April and that Basis Nord was never even established. She had arrived off Narvik from the north on 8 April, and had been stopped by the Norwegian patrol boat Kvitøy. Jan Wellem was allowed entry to Narvik by the regional Norwegian naval command, where she was inspected. Her captain claimed that she was carrying of fuel oil and 8,098 crates of food provisions and that she was on her way to Germany. A second tanker, the Kattegat which had sailed to Norway from Wilhelmshaven, had been sunk in the Glomfjord in the evening of 9 April. Kattegat had been stopped by the Norwegian fishery protection ship HNoMS Nordkapp, the Norwegian ship first trying to take the tanker as a prize, but due to the large German crew could not control it all the way to Bodø, in the end sinking Kattegat by firing four rounds into the tanker's water line.
Kattegat had been delayed from reaching Narvik in time by the British 8 April mining operations off Norway. A third tanker—Skagerrak—had also been despatched to Norway, in support of the German landings at Trondheim, but she was intercepted by the British cruiser, on 14 April, after she had been redirected by German naval command to a waiting position at sea. When the British warship tried to board Skagerrak her crew scuttled her at. Both Kattegat and Skagerrak, which were sister ships, were inspected at Kopervik by the Norwegian torpedo boat, on 5 and 7 April respectively. The captain of Kattegat told the Norwegians that he was headed to Narvik for further orders, and the captain of Skagerrak claimed Murmansk as their destination, and inspections revealed that both tankers had a full load of fuel oil. Skagerrak also carried of food provisions, which was claimed as supplies for German merchant ships. The food crates were labelled "Wehrmacht". According to the German plan the destroyers were supposed to have been refuelled by two tankers, Kattegat and Jan Wellem, each receiving some of fuel oil.
The flotilla was then to be on its way back to Germany by the evening of 9 April. The plan failed because only Jan Wellem made it to Narvik. Refuelling with just one tanker was difficult; only two destroyers could be refuelled simultaneously, taking seven or eight hours. At arrival in Narvik, the destroyers were almost out of fuel. Making the refuelling more challenging was the fact that Jan Wellem had only improvised refuelling arrangements and inferior pumping equipment. While two destroyers were being refuelled at a time, a third was on guard in fjord, the remaining seven being spread around in the nearby area. By 04:00 on 10 April, Jan Wellem had managed to fully refuel three of the German destroyers, and was in the process of refuelling two more.
In the meantime, British forces had tried to engage the Kriegsmarine, but for the most part, unsuccessfully. On 8 April, the British G-class destroyer engaged the heavy cruiser and two destroyers, and was lost, ramming and damaging Hipper in the battle. On the 9 April morning, the British battlecruiser exchanged artillery salvos with the German battleships Scharnhorst and Gneisenau, which were screening the destroyers. During the battle one of the artillery shells from Renown damaged the fire control system on Gneisenau, the British battlecruiser was also hit two times and slightly damaged. After that the German battleships withdrew from the battle at high speed. The destroyers' main mission had been completed, however, as they had succeeded in landing the invasion force.